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In the hot summer months, there is nothing more refreshing than a cold glass of lemonade. Country Time Lemonade is a popular brand of powdered mix that makes it easy to whip up a pitcher of delicious lemonade in no time. But, is Country Time lemonade vegan?
All flavors of Country Time lemonade might be vegan, but they contain tocopherol and/or natural flavor. These ingredients can contain ingredients derived from animals.
Below is a table showing Country Time lemonade flavors and its vegan status.
| Flavor | Vegan Status |
| Pink Lemonade | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor and Tocopherol (Preserve Freshwess). |
| Black Cherry Lemonade | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor. |
| Lemonade | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor and Tocopherol (Preserve Freshwess). |
| Half & Half | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor and Tocopherol (Preserve Freshwess). |
| Strawberry Lemonade | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor. |
Country Time Lemonade Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.
- Artificial Color
- Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)
- Blue 1
- Calcium Fumarate
- Caramel Color
- Citric Acid
- Fructose
- Instant Tea
- Magnesium Oxide
- Malic Acid
- Maltodextrin
- Natural Flavor
- Red 40
- Red 40 Lake
- Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate
- Sodium Citrate
- Soy Lecithin
- Sugar
- Sulfites
- Tocopherol (Preserve Freshness)
- Xanthan Gum
- Yellow 5 Lake
[Source]
As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.
Questionable Ingredients
Sugar
Sugar can be a tricky ingredient for vegans because there is an instance where the sugar could be classified as non-vegan. Now there are two popular types of sugar in candy and sweet, beet sugar and cane sugar. The latter being the most popular one.
Beet sugar is always vegan-friendly and so is cane sugar, but when cane sugar is used, it’s most often refined to fit the candy or sweet product better. In this refining process the sugar is also bleach and a common method is to use bone char from dead cows.
Exploiting animals when producing a product is not okay with vegans. This could technically make the product non-vegan because exploiting animals should not be necessary at all.
Natural Flavors
This ingredient is an umbrella term, which means that it can contain several different ingredients. The source of these ingredients is not disclosed on the ingredients label, if it contains milk it’s often disclosed for allergy purposes. This means that if the natural flavors contains ingredients derived from animals, it would not be shown anywhere.
This is a problem for vegans and the only way to be sure that this ingredient is vegan-friendly, the product either needs have a vegan label from a trusted organisation such as vegan.org or vegan society. You could also contact the company and ask.
Artificial Colors
There are several artificial colors in some of the flavors such as blue 1, red 40 and yellow 5 lake. These colors are known for being tested on animals and a lot of vegans tends to stay away for this reason. It’s unclear if the it’s still being tested on animals.
There are other testing methods such as computer simulations that can do a great job. When it comes to the health, there are several health issues connected to artificial colors and one of them being hyperactivity in kids.
Tocopherol
Can be made from animal-sourced ingredients or plant-based ingredients.
Conclusion
Most of the time natural flavor in lemonade is vegan-friendly, but we can’t know for sure. I’m contacted the company and they have not yet replied. If the natural flavor would be vegan, then two flavors could be vegan.
Some lemonades can contain vitamin D and this can also be derived from animals.
Thanks for reading, take care!
